Putin and Trump discuss Iran and Ukraine in phone call, Kremlin official says

MOSCOW (AP) – U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Iran, Ukraine and other issues on Thursday in a “frank and constructive” phone call, the Kremlin said, in their sixth publicly disclosed chat since Trump returned to the White House.

While discussing the situation around Iran and in the broader Middle East, Putin emphasized the need to resolve all differences “exclusively by political and diplomatic means,” said Yuri Ushakov, his foreign affairs adviser. The leaders agreed that Russian and U.S. officials will maintain contacts on the issue, he added.

The United States struck three sites in Iran on June 22, inserting itself into Israel’s war aimed at destroying Tehran’s nuclear program.

On the conflict in Ukraine, Ushakov said Trump emphasized his push for a quick halt to the fighting, and Putin voiced Moscow’s readiness to pursue talks with Kyiv, noting the previous rounds in Turkey yielded humanitarian results.

At the same time, the Russian leader emphasized that Moscow will seek to achieve its goals in Ukraine and remove the “root causes” of the conflict, Ushakov said.

“Russia will not back down from these goals,” Ushakov told reporters after the call.

Putin has argued he sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022 to fend off a threat to Russia posed by Ukraine’s push to join NATO and protect Russian speakers in Ukraine — arguments rejected by Kyiv and its allies. He insisted that any prospective peace deal must see Ukraine abandon its NATO bid and recognize Russia’s territorial gains.

Thursday’s call follows the Pentagon’s confirmation that it’s pausing shipment of some weapons to Ukraine as it reviews U.S. military stockpiles. The weapons being held up for Ukraine include air defense missiles, precision-guided artillery and other equipment.

The details on the weapons in some of the paused deliveries were confirmed by a U.S. official and former national security official familiar with the matter. They both requested anonymity to discuss what is being held up as the Pentagon has yet to provide details.

Ushakov said a suspension of some U.S. weapons shipments to Ukraine wasn’t discussed in the Trump-Putin call.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in Denmark after meeting with major European Union backers that he may talk to Trump in the coming days about the suspension of U.S. weapons deliveries.

“I hope that maybe tomorrow, or close days, these days, I will speak about it with President Trump,” he said.

Asked about his expectations from the Trump-Putin call, he said that “I’m not sure that they have a lot of common ideas, common topics to talk (about), because they are very different people.”

The previous publicly known call between Trump and Putin came June 14, a day after Israel attacked Iran.

The resumed contacts between Trump and Putin appeared to reflect both leaders’ interest in mending U.S.-Russian ties that have plummeted to their lowest point since the Cold War amid the conflict in Ukraine.

Ushakov said Trump told Putin about his $4.5 trillion tax breaks and spending cuts bill, and the Russian leader wished him success in pursuing his plans and also congratulated the U.S. on the Independence Day holiday.

The Kremlin adviser noted the leaders also discussed developments in Syria and expressed interest in pursuing bilateral projects in the energy sector and space exploration, during what he described as “frank, businesslike and concrete conversation.”

Ushakov added that Putin even suggested that the U.S. and Russia could exchange movies promoting “traditional values shared by us and the Trump administration.”

On Tuesday, Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron held their first direct telephone call in almost three years.

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Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Washington and Lorne Cook in Aarhus, Denmark, contributed.